


there's no need to be brave

by Liberte_Egalite_Broadway



Series: I don't know who I am (but I know who I'm not) [8]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Past Drug Use, Past Violence, Podcast WLW Week, This sounds really sad but don't worry, it's actually really sweet at the end, vespa looks at Juno and Peter and goes "well i guess i'm a mother now"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway/pseuds/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway
Summary: Sometimes Vespa still wonders what's an illusion and what's real.





	there's no need to be brave

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "I Will" by Mistki, which fits these two so well. 
> 
> Ok so full disclosure it's been a while since I listened to Time Gone By and I didn't want to go back through and listen to it all against so I just read the Wikia and transcript and hopefully this won't be too inaccurate? 
> 
> This fic is a part of WLW Week, a collection I started to tell stories about WLW from fiction podcast fandoms! If you love fiction podcasts, consider posting to the collection!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING:  
> Visual hallucinations, references to past trauma, references to violence including gunfire, references to being chased.

Sometimes Vespa still wonders what's an illusion and what's real. 

When she heard the guns, she didn't think. She just reacted. "Go, Buddy!" she shouted, pushing her girlfriend as she herself burst into a scrambled sprint. "Go, go, go!" Their feet slammed on the packed earth and their hands scrabbled for each other, for the highscraper. Then Buddy's hand wrenched from hers, and the laser bullets tore her flesh, and there were screams in the air but none were hers because she could no longer find the breath to add to them -

She gasps, her hands slamming onto the counter. The nightmare is over, but will it ever be over, really? Her shoulders heave as she stands over the sink. Sweat soaks through her green locks, drip-drip-dripping into the drain. Through them, she can see her haggard reflection with wild eyes and mussed brows. She lowers her gaze from the reflection to the sink and catches sight of the debtor's tattoo on her wrist. Vespa I., five years. She will have that mark for the rest of her life, even if she decides to get the tattoo removed. 

Vespa sinks down to the cold bathroom floor with her back against the wall. Her bare knees knock together. Moments later, her girlfriend knocks on the door and shouts to her through it. "Vespa?" she called. "Vespa darling, are you in there?" 

She sniffles, drawing her skinny arm across her nose. "Come in." 

Buddy slinks through the door. Her slippered feet pad across the floor as she comes to Vespa's side and sits down in a rustle of silk. "Something the matter?" she mumbles sleepily, running a hand through her messy floof of red hair. 

"Nah, nothing," says Vespa. Buddy lifts an eyebrow. "Yeah, okay, something. The dream again." 

Buddy nods, considering. Vespa draws her arms around herself and shivers. She's only wearing a thin tank top and pair of shorts. It gets too hot on the ship for her. The heat reminds her of the Martian desert, of the radiation poisoning her brain. When she's in a hot room the memories are almost overwhelming. It's always freezing in the room that she shares with her girlfriend. Buddy, ever understanding, loads up on blankets and robes and deals with it. Here the bathroom tiles are cold, and the sweat on her skin has gone cold, and now Vespa shivers. Buddy draws her close and kisses her sweaty temple. "You're shaking, Vespa," she says. "Why don't you come back to bed?"

"No." She draws away and goes to the sink, turning the tap back on with determination. "No," she replies as she dunks her head into the water, "I need to stay awake for a while, you know?"

"I understand," says Buddy. She picks up a bottle of shampoo and coasts smoothly over to her girlfriend, and, after gently stilling Vespa's hands with a touch, she begins to massage the shampoo into Vespa's scalp. Vespa keeps her head down and watches the bubbles swirl around the sink and then down the drain, carrying away the sweat of her nightmare-induced shaking. In a way, it's like washing away the nightmares themselves. "After this," Buddy suggests, "Why not check on your patients? That will make you feel better."

Vespa snorts. "My patients? Those idiots!" She likes doing medical work. It steadies her. So, after her hair is washed and blow-dried, she puts on one of Buddy's robes and pads down the hallway. The detective, Juno Steel, and the thief, Fay Arrow, were both badly injured on their last heist. They wanted to stay in their own room, but she made Fay switch to the medical bay after she got a look at his injury. It comforts her, in a way, to know that there are other people with as many scars as her. Now she makes him wake up so she can check his vitals, while he complainingly untangles himself from a half-asleep Juno Steel, who also complains while she takes _his_ vitals and checks both of their bandages. "Really, Vespa," says Fay sleepily, "If you're going to wake us up, you could be more gentle."

"Dunno what you mean," she says as she tightens his bandage. "Okay, you're good. Go back to sleep."

"Why aren't you asleep, Vespa?" asks Juno blearily. She flinches and finished packing up her kit. 

"Because I'm not. Go back to sleep." She opens the door and strides out with Buddy in tow. She's not ready to go back to bed yet, so they go to the kitchen and make tea. They drink it sitting on the counters instead of in chairs. Tea is wonderful. She was never allowed to have it while she paid off her debts, since it was too expensive. Now she drinks as much of it as she can. When she finishes drinking it Buddy makes her more, a mug of orange tea with a small teaspoon of honey. She sips at it and looks out the window at all the stars. One of them, distant, is the planet that held her and Buddy captive. Steel, too, she thinks. That's something she has in common with the kid. 

She drinks her orange tea and Buddy holds her hand, humming a song to her. When she's calm they will go to bed, and she will sleep in her girlfriend's arms. Their hair will tangle together on the pillow, red against green, and they will breathe the smell of shampoo and orange off each other's skin. Her hair is clean, and her hands have done productive work in caring for other people. There will be no more nightmares once she goes back to bed. 

But that time isn't now. Now there is a kitchen empty of people, except for her girlfriend. This moment is real, she reminds herself. It isn't a hallucination. 

"Buddy?" she says.

"Yes?" Her voice is husky. The radiation made it that way, Vespa knows. She knows about Buddy's years in the open desert, about her near-madness that mirrored the madness Vespa herself went through. They know these things, but don't talk to them. Giving them voice is giving them power over the two women, and that is something best left to the past. 

"Can you do me a favor?" Vespa asks. 

"Of course."

"Say, 'this is real'."

Buddy sets down her mug and walks over to her. She lays a hand on Vespa's leg, creating the warm contact of her skin over her skin in a world so cold to both of them. With her other hand, she holds Vespa's palm to her beating heart. Her fingertips coast over the debtor's tattoo. "This is real, my love," she murmurs, looking into Vespa's eyes. She kisses her with lips softer than the silk nightgown draped over her body. Her kiss is an antidote to poison. 

They finish their tea and go to bed. Vespa has no more nightmares. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like fiction podcasts, consider posting to WLW Week! The collection will be open through April 13th, so help raise awareness for queer women in podcasts!


End file.
